


Special Features

by mithrel



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Blanket Permission, Blow Jobs, Cecil is Inhuman, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Hand Jobs, M/M, No Tentacles, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:06:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil is hiding something from Carlos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Special Features

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my friends who read this every time I added to it, and thanks to ladydrace for giving suggestions even though she isn't in the fandom.

They’ve been on a few dates since they went to Gino’s (and sat in the Arby’s parking lot, which Carlos secretly counts as their first date). Tonight they’re just out walking, and it’s nice. Carlos has managed to train himself not to look at the lights in the sky or the small localized cyclones, at least when he’s out with Cecil.

The nights have finally started getting cooler, and a slight breeze rattles some loose paper along the road.

It’s then that Carlos catches sight of the figures on the other side of the street. He stops and his hand involuntarily tightens in Cecil’s.

“What?” Cecil says, following his gaze. “It’s just Old Woman Josie.”

But the old woman in the faded flower-print dress isn’t what’s holding Carlos’ attention. It’s the figure casting a shadow over her, ten feet tall, surrounded by light, with a face made up of nothing but eyes. He swallows, forces his attention back to Cecil, taking his hand back and wiping it on his jeans. “And Erika,” he croaks.

“Well, yes,” Cecil says, like that should be obvious, and it _should_ be obvious, he _knows_ about the angels, Cecil’s mentioned them often enough on his show, but he’s never _seen_ one…

Carlos nods and reaches for Cecil’s hand, but he turns away and keeps walking. Carlos jogs to catch up, slightly concerned. “Cecil?”

“Yes, well, it’s late, I should be getting home.” 

“What?” Carlos glances at his watch (which somehow works despite not being real). It’s 9:30. “Cecil?”

But Cecil’s gone, vanished down a cross-street.

***

Cecil’s not answering his phone. Carlos looked for him for awhile, but it was as if he’d literally vanished (which he knows some people in Night Vale can do, but he didn’t think Cecil was one of them.) And now he’s not picking up, and not responding to Carlos’ messages, which go something like this:

“Cecil, I’m sorry for whatever I did to offend you. I didn’t mean to.”

(The following day):

“Cecil, I’ve thought about it and I realized what I did and I’m sorry. If you…oh, never mind.”

(Over the course of several days):

“I’m not going to leave a string of messages begging you to talk to me, because that would just be pathetic.”

"OK, I lied. But Cecil, honestly, you're being kind of a dick. This is not how mature humans deal with their problems."

"Sorry about the dick thing. And possibly the human thing. Honestly, I was just startled, I'd never seen an angel before and everything about this town is so _bizarre,_ but I wouldn't be startled if it turned out you had…I don’t know, tentacles or glow in the dark or whatever, because it's you..."

That’s the last message he leaves, convinced Cecil will never speak to him again and that he’s screwed up their relationship before it had a chance to get started.

He’s surprised when, about ten minutes after Cecil’s show has ended, his phone rings.

The number is blocked, of course. All the numbers in Night Vale are blocked, and there are rumors about what happened to the guy the City Council wanted to get rid of…no one’s sure what happened, but his head was _gone,_ and his phone is the source of the glow in Radon Canyon.

“Hello?” he says, not daring to hope. Just because Cecil’s show just ended…

“Carlos.”

It’s him, that voice he hasn’t heard except on the radio since Cecil left him in the street, and that only to torture himself.

“It’s you!” Carlos blurts before he thinks. “Uh, I mean, Cecil, I wasn’t expecting…that is, you didn’t…I’m just gonna shut up now,” he finishes, face hot.

He hears Cecil chuckle over the phone, then he says, “I accept your apology.”

“You do? I mean…uh…great!”

Cecil’s voice turns serious. “But you understand if I don’t want to show them to you just yet.”

 _Them?_ “Oh yeah, that’s…sure!” _God,_ why is he babbling like an idiot?!

“Are you free for dinner tomorrow?”

“What time?” At least he manages a complete sentence for once.

“Mmmm. Say, six o’clock?”

“Six is fine,” Carlos says, then, once Cecil has hung up, buries his face in his hands. “Oh you’re a smooth one, Carlos. Regular Casanova, _shit!_ ”

***

Thankfully, he’s calmed down enough by six tomorrow to keep from saying anything stupid. Cecil looks nice, his hair slicked back, white button-down shirt, navy blue tie and jeans.

“You look nice,” he says, because that’s safe, right? People say that to their dates all the time.

Cecil smiles. “Thanks. You too.”

They go to Big Rico’s and order gluten-free pizza (Carlos is about ready to drive to the next town and smuggle in some bread, City Council be damned).

He doesn’t want to bring it up, considering Cecil is just now talking to him again, but he looks so _normal,_ and Carlos can’t help wondering what the “them” he was talking about is.

He swallows, as Cecil ends his story about Khoshekh and the new intern and says, “I don’t want to pressure you or…or anything, and I understand I still need to get used to…stuff, but can you at least tell me what…” he trails off, because Cecil is _looking_ at him, green eyes solemn behind his glasses.

“I have two…I suppose you could call them ‘non-standard features,’” Cecil says slowly and Carlos nods, waits for him to go on, but he’s silent.

“OK,” Carlos says, accepting that that’s all he’s going to get, for now at least, and turns the conversation to the upcoming football game against Desert Bluffs.

***

Things go back to mostly normal between them (or as normal as things get in Night Vale) but Carlos is making an effort to show he’s not freaked out by “non-standard” things. He buys Khoshekh a fuzzy ball with a bell in it, has a long conversation with Hiram about the way his Bunsen burners lean to the left and how that resulted in a lot of damage to his lab, and even manages to nod to one of the angels in front of him in line at the Ralph’s.

At first he only does it when Cecil’s around, but after he helps Mr. Bartlett untangle his dog’s leash from his tail with Cecil nowhere to be seen, he realizes it’s become a habit.

Cecil’s become more and more relaxed around him, the occasional darting glances smoothing over into lingering looks, a small smile on his face whenever Carlos talks to one of the non-human inhabitants, but he still hasn’t shown him…whatever there is to show him.

He does, however, look at him one evening at the end of their date, and say, rather quickly, “I have a third eye. And wings.”

Carlos blinks, because that came out of nowhere, but then he nods. “Thank you for telling me.”

Cecil nods too, not looking at him, and with a quick peck on the cheek, and a “Bye!” he’s out of the car.

***

Now that he knows something about what Cecil’s been hiding from him, he can’t help wondering even more. A third eye where? Is it on his forehead or somewhere else? What kind of wings? For that matter, how many? Carlos figured that Cecil was counting the eye and the wings as separate “features,” but that doesn’t mean he can’t have six wings.

Knowing about them makes him more eager than ever to see them, but things have been going so well between him and Cecil that he’s reluctant to push.

The day Cecil chooses to show him is just as unremarkable as the day he told him about his wings and third eye. They’re sitting on the couch in Carlos’ lab as he copies reports (difficult to do without writing implements) and Cecil plays absently with his hair.

Carlos turns a page in his notebook, and Cecil says, “Do you have a moment?”

Carlos immediately puts his notes aside. “For you, always.”

Cecil takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. “I’m going to show you.”

Carlos sits up immediately, his eyes fixed on Cecil. “Are you sure?”

Cecil nods. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, his forehead opens too.

Carlos swallows, trying not to be disturbed by the sight. “It’s not green like the others,” he manages after a moment.

Cecil shakes his head, the iridescent oval in his forehead gleaming. The lidless eye doesn’t have anything Carlos would recognize as being an “eye,” no iris or cornea or pupil, just an opening of pearly light into Cecil’s forehead.

“How do you see with it? I mean…do you see the same things as with your…other eyes?” Carlos kicks himself inwardly for the hesitation, still thankful that he was able to substitute for “normal” with only a bare pause.

“No,” Cecil replies, and apparently he either didn’t notice the pause or didn’t realize its significance.

“What do you see?”

Cecil sits back and presses his lips together, with a low “Hmmm.” “Everything glows. Well, not everything. Animals. Certainly people. And I see lines in the air.”

“…Lines?”

“Like…” Cecil flaps a hand irritably. “Coming from the radio.”

“So you see radio waves? Or energy?” _Electric fields, that would explain why he sees it around people…_

Cecil shrugs helplessly and Carlos lets it go.

“So this is it,” Cecil says, looks like he wants to correct himself, then stops. Carlos knows what he means.

“This is it,” Carlos says and smiles slightly. “Are you going to keep it like this?”

Cecil hesitates. “If it wouldn’t bother you.”

Carlos nods. “Good, then.”

And he lets Cecil settle against him, the visceral adrenaline-spike of _Other_ already fading.

***

After that, he gets used to Cecil’s third eye. He still feels an initial shock every time he sees him, but it’s less intense each time.

About a week after Cecil showed him, they go to see a movie. Night Vale’s selection isn’t great, being way out in the sticks. It has a theater that plays nothing but old black-and-white horror movies and a duplex with “current” movies. Carlos put his foot down when Cecil wanted to see “Creature From the Black Lagoon” (“In this town, one might show up tomorrow!”) so it’s a choice between “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” and some movie called “Jesus Henry Christ.”

Neither looks particularly promising, so they flip a coin. It doesn’t land on its edge, for once, and they buy tickets.

Not many people are in the theater as they sit down in the back and watch the scrolling ads (“Roy’s Roach Patrol: We Kill ‘Em All, Boat-Size or Small!” “Old Steel Shades: For Those Semi-annual Days of Bioluminescence!” and of course the ubiquitous admonition to not approach the dog park).

The movie starts after a few minutes. Apparently an asteroid named “Matilda” is going to destroy the Earth. Carlos finds it hard to pay attention, since Cecil found them couple-seats, and his thigh is pressed full-length against Carlos’ own. 

Around the time Steve Carell is in a meeting at his work, Cecil’s hand creeps onto his knee. Carlos smiles slightly and takes it.

He thinks he’d have a hard time taking the movie seriously even without Cecil there, given that in Night Vale asteroids would barely be interesting enough to make the news, at least if they were small. Also, he doesn’t really like Steve Carell. But he’s spending time with Cecil, and that’s enough.

It’s apparently not enough for Cecil, though, because the hand-holding develops into breathing in his ear, and his foot’s nudging Carlos’ and it’s _really_ distracting.

He turns to tell Cecil to quit, only to have his lips captured in the most intense kiss they’ve shared yet. He’s about to pull away, to protest that they’re in public, even if it’s dark, that they’re not teenagers, they shouldn’t be necking in the back of a movie theater.

But Cecil’s hand goes to the back of his neck and fists in his hair, and his other hand is massaging Carlos’ thigh, and, yeah, he decides he doesn’t really care anymore.

When Cecil pulls away he looks breathless, and also smug. Carlos doesn’t say anything for a moment, trying to collect the fragments of his brain from where they’ve scattered to the four winds.

“What the hell was that?” he hisses finally, looking around the movie theater to see if they’ve been seen. It’s still not very crowded, and there’s no one in their row, so he relaxes a little, then turns back to Cecil.

Cecil looks pointedly indignant. “I’m not allowed to kiss my boyfriend?”

“That’s…of course you are, but you never kissed me like _that!_ ”

Cecil just smiles enigmatically and shrugs, going back to watching the movie.

He’s even less able to pay attention to the plot than he was before. There’s something about a high-school sweetheart and a girl wanting to go to London, but all he can think about is Cecil’s hand on his thigh, Cecil’s tongue in his mouth…

He shifts, adjusting himself surreptitiously, then thinks _What the hell?_

“Are you really interested in this movie?” he asks Cecil, who gives him a blinding smile in return and pulls him out of his seat.

They sneak glances at each other all during the drive to Cecil’s apartment, and Carlos finds himself jigging his leg up and down. They haven’t actually had sex yet, and he’s been in enough relationships to tell where this is going. If the mood hasn’t been broken. If Cecil hasn’t changed his mind.

Judging by the way Cecil presses him against the wall as soon as they’re inside and pushes his thigh between Carlos’ before he kisses him, he’s still 100% on board. Carlos pulls Cecil’s shirt out of his jeans and runs his hands up his back. Cecil breaks away to gasp “ _Carlos!_ ” the usual infatuation in his voice drowned out by lust.

Cecil moves to lick behind his ear and Carlos flinches, because that’s always been one of his hot-spots, and when Cecil pulls away with a questioning look, Carlos just shakes his head and says, “Don’t stop!”

It’s difficult to unbutton a shirt when the person wearing it is sucking on your neck, but Carlos manages, pulling Cecil’s tie loose and wrapping his arms around him.

Cecil pulls away for a moment, his eyes wide behind his glasses, his lips pink. He pulls at Carlos’ shirt and Carlos raises his arms to let him take it off.

They’re still in the kitchen, Carlos pressed against the wall, a growing pile of clothes accumulating next to them. Carlos pushes Cecil backward, steering him toward the bedroom, and Cecil goes, hitting an end table on the way and stumbling until Carlos steadies him.

Once they’re in the bedroom, Cecil pulls Carlos down on top of him, his hands in his hair, massaging his scalp. Carlos wonders again what this fixation is Cecil has with his hair, but Cecil reaches down to palm the bulge in Carlos’ jeans and he moans, bucking down into him.

Cecil opens his fly, his fingers surprisingly dexterous given the situation, and takes hold of Carlos’ cock through his boxers.

“ _Fuck,_ Cecil,” Carlos whines and pulls Cecil’s belt free of its loops, attacking his pants in retaliation.

The few times he’s imagined sex with Cecil it wasn’t like this, frantic half-clothed rutting in a bedroom with socks that he swears were magazines a second ago piled on the floor. It might have involved candlelight and rose petals, because he knows Cecil is a romantic. He might be disappointed later, but he doesn’t think so, because Cecil’s sucking at his pulse point as he finally gets his hands on Carlos’ bare skin and he hisses, his hands clenching on Cecil’s hips.

As he strokes him, Cecil repeats his name over and over, and Carlos doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to hear Cecil say it again without thinking of this moment.

He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again, wanting to see Cecil’s face. Their eyes lock. Only two of Cecil’s eyes are open, the third one squinched tightly shut.

“Fuck, Cecil I’m…I can’t–“ Carlos pants.

Cecil moves forward to lick behind his ear again and Carlos loses it, the room, the bed beneath him, everything fading away except his own body and Cecil’s hand. He shakes through it for what seems like hours, Cecil murmuring in his ear.

When he opens his eyes again Cecil is smiling beatifically, his eyes soft. He moves up and kisses him, slow and deep and Carlos’ hands go to his shoulders.

He can feel Cecil’s erection poking into his hip, though, and he pulls away after an aching moment to roll them over and pull down Cecil’s boxers.

Cecil whines as the fabric slides over his skin, then goes speechless as Carlos licks a long line down his cock. When Carlos sucks him down he keens again, his hands going to Carlos’ shoulders, then into his hair, pulling just short of too hard.

As Carlos flicks his eyes up, he can see what looks like a shadow behind Cecil, fluttering against the overhead light, but he figures it’s just a trick of the position and the uncertain light and goes back to concentrating on what he’s doing.

He pulls off of Cecil to kiss up one side of him and down the other as Cecil pants above him and makes half-formed syllables.

He licks around Cecil’s balls, taking one of them in his mouth and rolling it gently. Cecil’s hands pull at his hair again, then slowly move down, carding through his hair a final time before clenching at his shoulders.

Carlos licks over the head, takes just the tip of Cecil’s cock into his mouth, Cecil writhing against him until Carlos finally feels him pulse and come.

He pulls back out of reflex, out of practice at this, and Cecil spurts all over his face and chest.

When he realizes what he’s done, Cecil looks mortified, but Carlos just smiles at him and gets up to go to the bathroom and clean up.

When he gets back he tosses a second cloth to Cecil, who fastidiously wipes his hands, not looking at Carlos the entire time.

Carlos sits next to him and reaches for his hand. Cecil lets him take it, but he’s still staring at the wall.

Carlos rubs reassuring circles into Cecil’s palm with his thumb. “Hey. You OK?”

Cecil nods and squeezes his hand, but doesn’t say anything. “Hey,” Carlos says again, more forcefully, “Cecil, look at me."

“What’s wrong?” he asks as Cecil’s eyes reluctantly find his. “I told you it didn’t matter that you came like that, that’s kind of the point,” Cecil’s mouth twitches up a bit at that. “I like that I can do that to you,” Carlos says softly and Cecil blushes.

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?” Carlos asks, stroking a hand down Cecil’s back. Cecil makes a small pained noise and flinches away and Carlos draws his hand back immediately.

“Cecil?” But he’s already begun to put two and two together, remembering Cecil’s mention of wings and the shadow behind him.

“It’s hard…to keep them hidden,” Cecil says finally, and before Carlos can say anything, “particularly when you…” he trails off and Carlos stifles a chuckle.

Then he sobers again. “But you acted like I’d hurt you.”

“I haven’t kept them hidden for this long before and as I said, it’s a…strain.”

Carlos pulls Cecil’s head back around, and now he sees it, the pain-lines around the corners of his mouth, the slight hollowness in his eyes…

“Don’t,” Carlos blurts before he realizes it, and when Cecil’s eyes widen he says “Don’t you ever hurt yourself for me, I’m not worth it, nothing’s worth that–“

Cecil cuts him off with a kiss, and when he pulls back his eyes are shining. “Carlos…”

Carlos runs a hand through Cecil’s hair. “I mean it, Cecil, do whatever you have to do but I don’t want you hurting yourself on my account!”

Cecil nods, closes all three of his eyes, then there’s an almost silent _whoosh_ and a feeling of air being displaced and now it’s not just a shadow behind him anymore.

Carlos’ eyes widen, because when Cecil said ”wings” his mind automatically went to “feathers,” but they aren’t bird wings.

They’re more like bat wings, or Hiram’s wings, leathery skin stretched over a framework of joints. The skin is reddish, and the joints supporting it a darker red-orange. Carlos reaches out to touch almost instinctively, then pulls his hand back.

“You can touch,” Cecil says, smiling, and Carlos reaches cautiously forward.

He’d expected the skin to be impossibly thin and fragile, but it’s actually tough and supple. He runs his hands from the tip of the wing to the “thumb.” The bones don’t feel as light as he expects.

“Can you fly?” he asks before he thinks, and the wings pull away from him, fold up as if Cecil is feeling self-conscious.

“No. I might be able to if my bones were hollow, but…” Cecil trails off and Carlos doesn’t pursue the subject, realizing it’s a sensitive one.

“They’re beautiful.”

Cecil’s eyes light up again. “Really?”

Carlos nods. “You’re beautiful.” Now that he’s seen all of Cecil he can say that with absolute certainty.

Cecil’s hand moves to the small of his back, sweeping up to his shoulders as he leans in to kiss him.


End file.
